Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker discussion thread (*** now contains spoilers ***)

[Itsnotmykitchen]

Yeah, and Return of the Jedi made less than Empire. I don't think that means much. It is not pacing too far behind TLJ - I am pretty sure financially it is just fine.

Return if the Jedi made more although I don’t think it was a tremendous difference. The prior trilogies had the same pattern as the first movie making the most, followed by the final movie with the second taking in the least amount of money.

As good as the box office has been, most articles have been saying the performance has been a disappointment or neutral for Disney so I can see why JJ is getting defensive. This is also one of the worst reviewed movies out of all of the Star Wars films which also might sting.

 

[skeeter31]

The continuity issue that keeps coming back to me is the light speed skipping at the beginning of the movie. Rebels canonized interdictor cruisers and explained how they worked, yet Poe was able to jump from within an atmosphere to another atmosphere? If they had just shown it happening in space it would have been more believable in the canon.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The continuity issue that keeps coming back to me is the light speed skipping at the beginning of the movie. Rebels canonized interdictor cruisers and explained how they worked, yet Poe was able to jump from within an atmosphere to another atmosphere? If they had just shown it happening in space it would have been more believable in the canon.

Even in TFA when Han went from Lightspeed right into the atmosphere of planet ... definitely seems light Lightspeed technology has come a long way from the OT

 

[skeeter31]

Even in TFA when Han went from Lightspeed right into the atmosphere of planet ... definitely seems light Lightspeed technology has come a long way from the OT

lol exactly. A Coruscanty scientist must have invented something between the show and the movies lol.

 

[BrianL]

Return if the Jedi made more although I don’t think it was a tremendous difference. The prior trilogies had the same pattern as the first movie making the most, followed by the final movie with the second taking in the least amount of money.

As good as the box office has been, most articles have been saying the performance has been a disappointment or neutral for Disney so I can see why JJ is getting defensive. This is also one of the worst reviewed movies out of all of the Star Wars films which also might sting.

I've posted some numbers already, but Jedi did not make more than Empire:

WORLDWIDE TOTAL:
ESB: $547,879,454
ROTJ: $475,347,111

ORIGINAL RELEASE ONLY (Worldwide):
ESB: $400,083,259
ROTJ: $374,593,074

Only in the domestic numbers did Jedi do better:

ORIGINAL RELEASE ONLY (Domestic):
ESB: $209,398,025
ROTJ: $252,583,617

Counting only the domestic totals though leaves a lot of the money on the table. It's too soon to know how ROS will stack up, but looking for patterns is pretty pointless. The movie has done exceedingly well by pretty much any metric.

 

[mcjaco]

I've posted some numbers already, but Jedi did not make more than Empire:

Which is pretty typical of any film trilogy. The public just plain loses interest by the the third installment.

 

[BrianL]

Which is pretty typical of any film trilogy. The public just plain loses interest by the the third installment.

Right, this is all a normal trajectory. To paint ROS as a failure because it didn't do as well as TLJ or even TFA is silly. The film is on track to make over a billion dollars - it is doing perfectly fine.

 

[jknezek]

Right, this is all a normal trajectory. To paint ROS as a failure because it didn't do as well as TLJ or even TFA is silly. The film is on track to make over a billion dollars - it is doing perfectly fine.

Oh on an absolute basis, every Star Wars film bar Solo has been a success. But the absolute numbers aren't all that relevant to Disney. They are trying to decide if the film met it's Return on Investment (ROI), not whether it simply made a billion dollars. I thoroughly enjoyed RoS. Might want to see it again, and I rarely do that with movies in theaters. HOWEVER, I suspect it will be marginal for its Disney expected ROI. I suspect that the ROI for the third trilogy film was really high pre-Solo. I suspect the expectation was dropped post Solo and that the actually ROI will fall somewhere between the pre and post Solo expectations, and closer to post.

A disappointment for Disney? Probably not. But an expectation beater? Not that either.

 

[BrianL]

Oh on an absolute basis, every Star Wars film bar Solo has been a success. But the absolute numbers aren't all that relevant to Disney. They are trying to decide if the film met it's Return on Investment (ROI), not whether it simply made a billion dollars. I thoroughly enjoyed RoS. Might want to see it again, and I rarely do that with movies in theaters. HOWEVER, I suspect it will be marginal for its Disney expected ROI. I suspect that the ROI for the third trilogy film was really high pre-Solo. I suspect the expectation was dropped post Solo and that the actually ROI will fall somewhere between the pre and post Solo expectations, and closer to post.

A disappointment for Disney? Probably not. But an expectation beater? Not that either.

Well, I think it has probably beaten their expectations for THIS movie as of pre-release estimates (Disney was advising a rather conservative $165M opening which does show they had concerns), however it certainly may not have beaten their expectations back in 2015 for the entire trilogy. honestly the astronomically high hopes from that time were somewhat unrealistic as things seem to be flowing in the typical arc, with Solo being an aberration.

 

[KaptKaveman]

it is doing perfectly fine.

I don't think Disney plunked down 4.5 Billion dollars in the hopes of making movies that would do "fine".

Also serious question, and the first thing my wife asked me after watching the movie, why is this movie called "Rise of Skywalker"?

Rise of Palpatine was better than TLJ I will give it that, but that is a terrible low bar. It still felt like the plot was stitched together by a child. The whole trilogy is one big missed opportunity. It is said really, they had one shot and they screwed it up.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I don't think Disney plunked down 4.5 Billion dollars in the hopes of making movies that would do "fine".

Also serious question, and the first thing my wife asked me after watching the movie, why is this movie called "Rise of Skywalker"?

Rise of Palpatine was better than TLJ I will give it that, but that is a terrible low bar. It still felt like the plot was stitched together by a child. The whole trilogy is one big missed opportunity. It is said really, they had one shot and they screwed it up.

well, a) Rise of Palpatine would have given away that little return too early ... and b) because it is the rise of what "Skywalker" represents so when Rey takes the name "Skywalker" that is the rise of that vs calling herself a Jedi or whatever

 

[BrianL]

I don't think Disney plunked down 4.5 Billion dollars in the hopes of making movies that would do "fine".

Also serious question, and the first thing my wife asked me after watching the movie, why is this movie called "Rise of Skywalker"?

Rise of Palpatine was better than TLJ I will give it that, but that is a terrible low bar. It still felt like the plot was stitched together by a child. The whole trilogy is one big missed opportunity. It is said really, they had one shot and they screwed it up.

Well, fine in the sense that 4 out of 5 Star Wars movies have made over $1B at the box office (well, soon to be with ROS) - I don't think they're too worried about it.

 

[KaptKaveman]

I think it was C) They wanted to play off nostalgia like they tried to do with everything else in the movie to save it from the Rian Johnson fiasco.

 

[KaptKaveman]

I don't think they're too worried about it.

You sure about? They would be fools not to be at least a little concerned. After all there are no more Skywalkers or Solos to milk(teehee)......

 

[BrianL]

You sure about? They would be fools not to be at least a little concerned. After all there are no more Skywalkers or Solos to milk(teehee)......

Yeah, but there are Mandalorians and Baby Yodas so....

 

[KaptKaveman]

Yeah, but there are Mandalorians and Baby Yodas so....

I am sure they will do fine as well

 

[persona5]

Rogue One wouldn't make sense as episode 7 because it is the lead up to A New Hope (we even see Leia on the same ship at the end of the movie as she is on in the beginning of 4).

I think I'm in the minority for liking all of the new Star Wars content. I even enjoy the prequels if I look past the bad dialogue (I do think Revenge of the Sith is a great movie). Yes there were some continuity issues in the sequel trilogy, but I enjoyed them all as a Star Wars fan and they tackled different things. I'm excited for what else they produce in the Star Wars universe.

Wow. I totally screwed that up didn't I. I guess I meant making rogue one episode 4 and bumping all the rest while leaving out 8 would work better in my eyes. Thing is I did enjoy episode 8 when I saw in theater but after re-watching the entire bunch of them in order leading up to episode 9's release, I have to say it was my least favorite of all the start wars movies.

 

[LizzyS]

TROS made me like TLJ even more, tbh. I also love TFA, ftr.

 

[AvidDisReader]

The issue is not material, they have a whole Galaxy far far away to chose from. What Disney needs to do is pick one person to oversee the next trilogy/story line. My guess is that is the big discussion going on now, who that one person will be. You can have multiple directors on the different movies, as long as there is one over riding executive producer who keeps the story line moving in one direction. The only issue I see most have is that the last trilogy seemed a bit of a hodge podge with ideas coming from out of left field to try and explain issues with prior movies/episodes. So the end result was even if you enjoyed the movies as I did, they were still a bit disjointed. This can be fixed going forward with one over riding hand driving the storyline and in no way should there by any reason to believe Star Wars is in any serious trouble for future movies.

 

[mcjaco]

The issue is not material, they have a whole Galaxy far far away to chose from. What Disney needs to do is pick one person to oversee the next trilogy/story line. My guess is that is the big discussion going on now, who that one person will be. You can have multiple directors on the different movies, as long as there is one over riding executive producer who keeps the story line moving in one direction. The only issue I see most have is that the last trilogy seemed a bit of a hodge podge with ideas coming from out of left field to try and explain issues with prior movies/episodes. So the end result was even if you enjoyed the movies as I did, they were still a bit disjointed. This can be fixed going forward with one over riding hand driving the storyline and in no way should there by any reason to believe Star Wars is in any serious trouble for future movies.

Kind of makes you wonder how bad Lucas pitch for his final trilogy was to them, if they didn't even consider it, and went with this hot mess of a story line over the past three films.